“It seems to me that my whole life I've been standing on some tower or a pillbox or a trampoline, waving the names of writers, as if we needed rescue. And the first person I had to rescue was myself.”

“I was going to suggest some hard-won guidelines for responsible reviewing. For instance: First, as in Hippocrates, do no harm. Second, never stoop to score a point or bite an ankle. Third, always understand that in this symbiosis, you are the parasite. Fourth, look with an open heart and mind at every different kind of book with every change of emotional weather because we are reading for our lives and that could be love gone out the window or a horseman on the roof. Fifth, use theory only as a periscope or a trampoline, never a panopticon, a crib sheet or a license to kill. Sixth, let a hundred Harolds Bloom.”

“Books are where we go alone to complicate ourselves. Inside this solitude, we take on contours, textures, perspectives. Heightened language levitates the reader. Great art transfigures. And when we go back to it, it's full of even more surprises. We get older; it gets smarter.”

“Why do all men seem to think they need to rescue a woman? Are we not capable of rescuing our damn selves? Why do I need to be rescued? I don’t need a man to rescue me, and I certainly don’t need no wallbanging, Purina-fucking, listening-at-my-wall-like-a-goddamn-psycho coming over here to rescue me! You got that, mister?”

“I've forgotten most of what I've read and, frankly, it never seemed very important to me or to the world.”

“Dedicated to the memory of MY FATHER. For if I had not believed that he would have wished me to give such help as I could toward making his life's work of service to mankind, I should never have been led to write this book.”

“Well, I've been waiting, I was surewe'd meet between the trains we're waiting forI think it's time to board anotherPlease understand, I never had a secret chartto get me to the heart of thisor any other matter”